Haecceity.nu

I have determined that renting an apartment sucks, majorly. Unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about it as I’m not ready to buy anything. (In fact, the very idea of owning a home makes me feel old. I’m not ready to be “old” yet.) But geez, why does rent have to be so ridiculous?

Louie and I live in SoMA, and I understand rent in this neighborhood isn’t cheap but come on. It went up $300 last year, and now it’s going up $500 this year! I wish it was rent-controled, but for rent control in San Francisco you need to live in a pre-1978 building, which probably isn’t going to happen for us since older buildings are (1) smaller and (2) Louie doesn’t like them anyway.

I just don’t feel like our apartment is worth that much more money. Don’t get me wrong, the location is very convenient commute-wise (I walk a few blocks) and our apartment is a decent size for the two of us (almost 700 sq feet, I think). There’s just so much I don’t like. I don’t like that we don’t have many windows and that we’re near ground level, plus we live across the street from an abandoned high rise building that blocks all the sun. So the lighting in our apartment is downright dreary, especially when the days are shorter. (When the days are longer, in the Spring/Summer, it isn’t so bad.) Speaking of the abandoned building, they have started doing construction on that in the past few months and while they seem to be making decent progress it’s no fun living across the street from an active construction zone. Louie complains that they wake him every day at 7 am. (Luckily for me, in this case, I’m a heavy sleeper.)

With all that in mind, we’re looking to move. Louie really wants a loft, so I’ve been trying to find some in our price range but they get snatched up so fast! It’s like WHOOOOSH GONE. We have an appointment today at noon to see two lofts in Potrero Hill, and I really hope we like at least one of them so we can apply for it right away. They’re both available in mid-May, which is perfect since that is exactly when our lease is up for our current place. I called to schedule the viewing last Tuesday but the real estate agent had said that one of them was already being applied for. See what I mean? WHOOOOSH!

As most girls do, I love shopping. I love it a lot, and thus I have a lot of clothes. In fact, I have an entire 3-door closet (sliding, sadly not a walk in) and a large 8-drawer dresser full of clothes. (Which doesn’t even include my 4-drawer unmentionables dresser!) The problem, though, is that I still have a lot of clothes that I’ve had since college (in some cases even high school, *cringe*) and I honestly am over the jeans-and-t-shirt look. Sure, it’s comfortable, but I feel like I’m still in college when I wear it. I want to get rid of most of my t-shirts, keeping only the ones I really love and replacing them with tops that I feel suit my personality and my vision of my “personal style” more.

Personal Style—It’s a word that haunts some people because they feel they can’t decide what they want or stick to one look! It’s hard, seriously, figuring out not only what you like (and don’t like) but also what works with your body type and coloring (skin/hair/eyes). (Same goes for figuring out what makeup looks right too, actually.)

Since college I’ve done a little note-taking and have started to flesh out my style more and more. I’ve decided it can be classified as “edgy but still feminine.” For example, I like pairing floral dresses with corset belts or military-inspired boots. I also really like vintage/hand-made/eclectic jewelry, which I think accents my wardrobe nicely. And I’m also trying to move away from wearing too much black…

Which brings me to color palettes. I recently read this article on figuring out your wardrobe’s color palettes, and I realized it was a brilliant thing to do. This way, when shopping, you can figure out whether or not to buy something quicker based on whether or not it fits in your palette and also avoid buying things you’ll never wear because—despite whether or not you love the piece—it doesn’t go with anything else you own or it only works with one particular outfit.

Here are my colors:

• Neutrals: black, navy/dark blue (think denim), all shades of grey
• Base: Purples, Pinks, Reds, Greens, Teals, Deep Blues. Mostly jewel-tones. Dusty shades are okay, but not pastels.
• Accents: Copper, Silver, Gold, White, Ivory, Cream, anything considered neon.
• Try to Avoid: Oranges, Yellows, and anything pastel.

The reason I chose to avoid oranges and yellows is because I have cooler toned skin and orange/yellow are very warm-toned (unlike red or pink which can have cool undertones depending on the shade), plus my hair is red and I feel like wearing oranges detracts from it. Likewise with pastels, I’m very pale and I don’t want to wear colors too close to my skin tone. I’d rather offset the fairness of my skin with dark or bright colors.

If you follow me on Twitter, or know me IRL you probably already know that I used to play World of Warcraft a lot. I had played since January 2008 but decided to quit for a while in early 2011 because I was sick of dealing with the drama that came along with serious raiding guilds. (Which is a whole ‘nother story for another day. Let me know if you’d be interested in a “Why I Quit World of Warcraft” post about it.)

It’s been over a year since then, and I picked the game back up last month after a friend convinced me to give it a shot again. I’m trying to approach it a different way, this time. Previously I was, as mentioned, in hardcore raiding guilds and that was my main focus. This time, especially since it’s late in the expansion, I have avoided raiding guilds. I joined a role-playing guild, and am super excited to get back into playing my character and have been doing so slowly but surely. If you’re interested, I have an in-character journal for her which you can read here: Fire at Dawn.

Role-playing has been a huge hobby of mine since college, when my coworker from the Apple Store introduced me to LARPing. As a writer (I double-majored in Creative Writing as well as Graphic Design in college!) storytelling and character development has always been a huge deal to me, and LARP/role-playing seemed to be a natural, nerdy extension of that. I quite enjoy writing stories based on characters I create. It’s much like fan fiction, I suppose, except you’re not using characters from canon very often.

Though I’m excited and engaged by RP in WoW, I admittedly miss raiding quite a bit. There’s something about the fervor of downing a boss for the first time after hours and hours of attempts—hell, weeks of attempts! It gets the blood flowing. I remember how I felt after downing Sarth + 3D (the hardest raid boss at the beginning of the Wrath expansion) and it was amazing. I loved it, it’s like a runner’s high but for gamers. Gamer’s high?

Anyway, I just don’t have the time to commit to raiding anymore. As much as I miss it, it isn’t a priority. There’s so much else I’d like to be doing! I have a list of hobbies about a mile long, so I’m okay with being a non-raider for now. ;)

I felt like wearing a spring-inspired bright color today, so I chose teal which is one of my favorites!

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I’m not sure if it’s the spirit of Spring or what, but I’m feeling motivated to write again. Truth be told, I always to write more but just lack the motivation. I’ve realized it’s because I want to write about so many different things and have no idea where to start. I thought that each of those things (like fashion, gaming, design, etc) could be it’s own separate blog and that it wouldn’t make sense as one blog. I also feared that if I wrote across a wide, unrelated breadth of topics that I would appear scatterbrained and that no one would want to read my blog anyway. I realize that all of this thinking/feeling is bullshit. If I had tried to start a blog for each hobby/topic I’m interested in, I’d have a million blogs. (Okay, maybe not a million. Probably like 10. But still! That’s a lot of blogs for one person.)

A blog is, first and foremost, for the blogger. Right? Which means I should be able to write about whatever I want, whenever I want, and not care what other people think. For the most part, anyway. Readers come and go, and you can’t please everyone. I’m okay with that. But for some reason I still felt a blog should stick to a single topic.

Twitter friends, thank you for proving me wrong! I’ll be working to transform Haecceity.nu into the multi-faceted blog I’ve always wanted, and it’ll take a bit of time so bear with me while it goes under construction. Stay tuned for it.

Some of the topics I’m looking forward to covering:

• Baking
• Fashion/Beauty
• Gaming/RP
• Design (web, print, & letterpress)
• Life, the Universe, and Everything